


Routine

by jeannigrace



Series: Observation is a Dying Art [2]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, observation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 19:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8812870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeannigrace/pseuds/jeannigrace
Summary: Patty Tolan doesn’t see herself as routine.  She doesn’t walk the same routes, she changes her deli order all the time, she switches toothpaste so often she’s probably tried them all.  But Abby sees.





	

Patty has a routine every morning. She comes into the kitchen, puts on a cup of cinnamon spice coffee in her keurig and a pot of regular coffee in Holtzmann’s battered, augmented, old coffee maker. She settles in with her morning cinnamon spice coffee -- the only time of day she drinks it -- and her chick lit novel at the kitchen table, and just reads for half an hour exactly. 

 

Abby’s the only one who ever sees this part of the morning. She wanders in a few minutes after Patty most mornings, pours herself a cup of the still-brewing coffee -- black, always -- puts waffles in the toaster, and sits across from Patty. 

 

There’s a pattern to Patty’s novels. They’re always chick lit -- a stiletto heel or a bouquet of flowers usually dons the cover -- but she rotates between friendship and romance focuses in a steady pattern. Abby knows when she’s getting to a good part when she holds the handle of her mug but doesn’t actually drink any of the coffee for several pages. 

 

The morning is also the only time Abby ever sees Patty wear glasses. Reading glasses, she notes, the kind you could get at Duane Reade 2 for $3. Patty never wears them when she reads nonfiction. Then again, nonfiction is usually printed in larger books than these novels. Abby munches her waffles in silence and flips through the reports they’ve received from Homeland Security, or she scrolls through the Ghost News New York subreddit. 

 

When she’s finished with her coffee Patty sets the mug -- enormous and obviously handmade -- to her left until she finishes her half hour of reading. Abby would call it a guilty pleasure book but she knows Patty doesn’t believe in feeling guilty about your pleasures. At the end of the half hour -- always exactly half an hour, never an alarm -- Patty slides her bookmark in to mark her page, washes her mug, plants a good morning kiss on the top of Abby’s head, and heads upstairs with an apple or a banana. Erin made the bookmark for their first Christmas together. Patty used it every morning in her chick lit and always smiled a half smile when she slid it into the pages.

 

Abby kept thinking she would ask Patty how she knew the half hour was up, but she never has. She’s pretty sure, though, that Patty knows her reading speed and knows how many pages she can read in half an hour. 

 

Patty would never call herself routine-oriented, Abby knows this, and she’s not nearly as ruled by routine as Erin, but she has her routines. She drinks coffee and reads in the morning. Abby always knows when Patty’s ready for lunch by the creaking of each desk drawer in order -- put away the book in the top left drawer, mark her notes and file them in the binder applicable to the topic or neighborhood then put that binder in the large bottom drawer to revisit in the afternoon, get her keys from the wide drawer over her legs, lock the drawer with her oldest and rarest book -- before she finds Holtz and the rest. Patty checks the firehouse’s locks in the same order every night before they all turn in - back door, back windows, garage bay, front office door, side door, side window - and on Saturday nights she checks them twice, once in order and the second time in reverse order. She always puts her phone in her left pants pocket. 

 

Patty Tolan doesn’t see herself as routine. She doesn’t walk the same routes, she changes her deli order all the time, she switches toothpaste so often she’s probably tried them all. But Abby sees.


End file.
